As of April 2022, over two million Snapchat messages and almost 105 thousand hours of meetings on Zoom were shared in a single online minute. In 2020, the global outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic drove users towards engaging more with both voice and video calls, with usage of video conferencing and video call apps increasing both for private and for professional purposes. However, as of the first quarter of 2023, downloads of leading video conferencing apps Zoom and Microsoft Teams experienced a decline.
Meta-powered messaging apps
Meta currently owns two leading messaging app products – WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The social media giant acquired WhatsApp in early 2014 for an eye-watering 19 billion U.S. dollars, when the messaging service had about 465 million monthly active users. In June 2023, WhatsApp was estimated to count over 2.8 billion unique users worldwide, an increase of over 12 percent compared to June 2022. Meta-owned Facebook Messenger also made the ranking of the most popular mobile messaging app worldwide, with approximately 931 million monthly active users as of January 2023.Initially released in 2011, Facebook Messenger, an app purely dedicated to chatting, was developed to take over the instant messaging function previously connected to the main Facebook app. In 2022, the app reported approximately 337.5 million downloads worldwide, down by over 33 percent compared to the million downloads amassed during the previous year. Messenger has since grown to include social features such as stickers, short video messages, and stories - which have been winning characteristics of Snapchat and Instagram - as well as video and voice calls. Improving the user experience on the app and adding functionalities might help Meta in competing with Apple’s native iOS service iMessage, especially in the U.S. market where it holds an audience reach of less than 50 percent.